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Double Take

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Double Take

Original Title: Double TakeDirector: Johan GrimonprezBelgium, Netherlands | English2009 |
80min.
| Colour and B&WSubtitles: EnglishFormat: Digital Betacam All AgesPart documentary, part conceptual art piece, Johan Grimonprez' Double Take is a fascinating found-footage fabrication, an essay that envisions Alfred Hitchcock as an unwilling victim of the political and cultural shifts of the Cold War era, a time when television began to replace cinema, Nixon debated Khrushchev, and everybody was worried about the Bomb. Comprised of newsreel footage, period television programs, and clips of the master and his films, Double Take uses Hitchcock as a filter through which to study tense U.S.-Soviet relations, the rise of fear as a commodity, and the birth of media-driven paranoia. Using The Birds as a metaphor, and dwelling on Hitchcock's obsession with doubles, Grimonprez traces the history of the catastrophe culture that invaded every American home in the 1950s, ushering in a fear of the "other" that remains to this day. As playful as it is political, Double Take is a masterwork that is better experienced than explained. ---Andrew Grant

Director,
Johan Grimonprez

Director,
Johan Grimonprez

Belgian-born writer-director Johan Grimonprez' innovative documentary Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) won him Best Director at both the San Francisco and Toronto Film Festivals; Looking For Alfred (2005) won several accolades including an Independent Spirit Award for Best Experimental Film.